Discarded White House Solar Panels To Rise Again In Maine

C Unity College, a small, four-year school in central Maine, will install a part of presidential history on its campus next month -- 32 solar panels that once heated water in the White House kitchen.

The panels were placed on the west wing of the White House in 1979 during the Carter administration and removed in 1986 during the Reagan administration when the roof was being repaired. Never replaced, the panels were stored in a General Services Administration warehouse in Washington until this month, when Unity College bought them as surplus for $500.

Peter Marbach, director of development at the college in Unity, Maine, the only undergraduate school in the nation that specializes in environmental science and natural resources development, said he learned about the panels when he was thumbing through an environmental magazine.

"I said to myself, what a waste," Marbach said. "Then I thought we should try to get them, prove to people that we just don't teach alternative energy here, but take action on it as well." Marbach said he wrote to former President Carter, to Maine's congressional delegation and to the GSA to find out how the college could get the surplus solar panels. After six weeks of persistent letter-writing and telephone calls, Marbach was told the school could have the panels for $500. The GSA listed their worth at $16,000.

"I was amazed to learn that the government has about $6 billion worth of surplus stuff just laying around in warehouses all over the country," Marbach said. "The warehouse in Washington was so big I had to be driven around in a golf cart to find the panels." Marbach said the 430-student school is struggling financially and could reduce energy costs at least $1,000 a year by using the panels to heat water in its cafeteria and the men's shower room.

Among those who will attend a small ceremony at the college Sept. 13 when the panels are in place will be George C. Szego, the 72-year-old founder of the defunct Intertechnology/Solar Corp. of Warrenton, Va., which made the panels and sold them to the White House.

Szego said he is pleased that Unity will use his panels, but lamented what he sees as a retreat by the government in supporting

alternative sources of energy.

"It's better than letting them gather dust in a warehouse," he said.

Szego said he doesn't remember the cost of installing the panels at the White House, but recalls the problems his company had to resolve.

"The White House and the Washington Fine Arts Commission didn't want them to be black," a color that absorbs the most sunlight, he said. "They wanted them to be baked white enamel, which we were finally able to do." Carter, although unable to attend the college's ceremony, wrote to Marbach expressing delight that Unity was able to buy the panels.

"It is good to know that Unity College is so concerned about energy conservation and that these panels will be put to productive use after being in storage for so many years after my administration," he wrote.

Carter, unlike his successor, was an outspoken advocate of solar energy.